


It's All In Your Head

by PatchworkPoltergeist



Category: Invader Zim
Genre: Dementophobia, Drabble, Episode: s01e14 Halloween Spectacular of Spooky Doom, Gen, nothing is scarier, the little alien house that was there yesterday
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-31
Updated: 2020-05-31
Packaged: 2021-03-02 17:27:16
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,094
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24480493
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/PatchworkPoltergeist/pseuds/PatchworkPoltergeist
Summary: Everything and everyone in Dib's horrible nightmare world is a reflection of reality. So... where's the nightmare version of Zim?
Comments: 2
Kudos: 46





	It's All In Your Head

Somewhere in the sprint between Blank Street and Nada Avenue Dib realizes something's not right.

Well. Aside from the whole horrible nightmare dimension hosted entirely inside his own brain thing. Besides that.

The dimension inside Dib's head is a world of monsters. Of nightmares. Things have teeth where there should be no teeth, the people he knows contort in on themselves to become grotesques he's never seen before, and yet he knows them on sight. He knows all of them like he’s known them forever. In a way, he has.

That's the thing about this place. His classmates, his teachers, his family, that guy who sells used monkey bladders from the trunk of his car: they're all monsters but they're all reflections of real people. The nightmare is just a reflection of his world—the _real_ world.

(Nothing's ever a 100% positive but Dib's pretty darn sure the world outside his head is the real one. Absolutely. Probably. …Hopefully.)

The same rules apply to the city itself. The buildings are darker, literally and figuratively. The Skool brandishes cruel sharp angles and wicked spires. The bank’s pockmarked with bleeding and rancid holes. The Delishus Weenie stand jiggles like jello when you poke it and smells like a wedding cake for some reason. They're all still reflections of things that already exist in the real world, though. At the end of the night, the Skool is still the Skool and the bank’s still the bank. Dib's House is still Dib's House. 

But not here. Something’s… off about this cul-de-sac. Until this point, the layout's been a perfect one-to-one match but now something's weird about the skyline. Like someone took an xacto knife to the world and sliced something out. 

And then it hits him like a kick in the guts. This is where Zim lives.

Or at least… it’s where he’s supposed to live. 

Dib's mad sprint trickles down to a jog. Then a walk. He stops and he stares. Takes a few steps back, wondering if he's lightheaded from running all night. Glancing over his shoulder for the posse of Nightmare Monsters out for his not big and completely normal-sized head, Dib waits for his breathing to return to normal.

That run must have taken a lot out of him. He’s shaking when he looks again.

There, nestled in an empty lot between two houses, sits a power station. A lonely little place with a rusted fence and stray tufts of barbed wire ghosting along the top. Carpets of dead grass spread out in rows and rows and rows. Vines slither over dead powerlines—the station’s been dead for years. Decades, maybe. A nest of some kind of nightmare bird rustles at the top, and if Dib squints he can see a trio of red eyes glowering at him.

Nobody's lived here for ages. If they ever did at all.

But that's not possible. It CAN'T be possible. Zim lives here. ...Doesn't he?

Dib double-checks the street signs and the landmarks. He knows Zim's neighbors' house from the inflatable pool of acid in the backyard, the one with the inner tube that looks like a beer can. It's the right street, alright.

He’s not imagining things. He’s NOT. There used to be a house here. He saw it. He was there. Dib tumbled into Zim’s Nightmare House during the last and final jump. That’s where the monsters ambushed him. That was his starting point. _It. Was. Right._ **_Here_ ** **.**

He circles the property once, twice, thrice. Feels along the old power station's walls searching for secret panels, a latch hiding under a rock, a sinister flamingo lurking in the tall grass, a robo-parent creaking in the shadows. Somewhere there’s gotta be a hidden camera or boot prints or an extraterrestrial lugnut or a lawn gnome. Stray wig hairs. Old bacon bits. Something. Anything. 

Dib finds cobwebs and dirt and the skeleton of a mouse. Nothing else.

Something gross clogs up in his throat. Dib swallows it back down.

There has to be an explanation. Everything has an explanation, even that explanation sounds ~~crazy~~ strange or unusual. Doors creek because they haven't been oiled. Temperatures plummet because ghosts haunt the attic. Dad doesn't listen because he's busy. Everything has a reason. Therefore, there's a reason Zim's not here.

Theory 1: This Nightmare World's Zim landed somewhere else.

But why would this Zim make such a drastically different change when everyone and everything else (aside from monster stuff) is a mirror image, right down to the fire hydrants and the garbage cans?

Theory Two: This world's Zim hasn't landed yet and/or it's a different timeline.

And yet, everyone else is here and the same age they're supposed to be. The calendars have the same year. Dad's the same age, Gaz is the same age, and Ms. Bitters is… Ms. Bitters.

Theory Three: ~~Zim doesn't exi~~

Theory Three: This version of Zim just lives deeper underground.

Despite no sign of entry. Despite no disturbed earth and the sidewalk hasn't been so much as swept since the late 80s. 

And despite the fact that Zim's about as subtle as Bigfoot hiding in a shoebox. And isn't the whole point of an alien invasion to blend in anyway? If Nightmare Spooky Zim lived here, he'd have a Nightmare Spooky House to blend in with the spooky neighborhood. It wouldn't make sense to have an alien monster blend in with the Earth monsters without a house.

…And wouldn't a Nightmare Spooky Zim have tracked him down by now? Dib's famous here. Everyone knows him. He's a walking talking portal gate. The key to the kingdom. Any Zim in any dimension would be on that in an instant.

But he's not. Because Zim doesn't exist here.

Maybe he never did.

Dib swallows hard as the lump in his throat thickens. When he remembers to breathe, it comes in slow deep heaves.

This place is a mirror image of his home dimension. Its reflections are mangled and terrible and monstrous, but still reflections. There is nothing here that doesn't exist at home in the real world. There is nothing at home that doesn't exist here.

If there's never been a Zim in _this_ dimension, then… 

“No.” Dib doesn't let his head (there's **_nothing wrong_ ** with his head) finish that sentence.

Now’s not the time for trans-dimensional theories, anyway. He's got work to do. Dib turns and bolts down the cul-de-sac and down the street.

He doesn't stop running and doesn't dare look back. There's no point in looking back. There’s nothing to see.


End file.
